Salamence

The two are incomparable. They do their jobs differently. Which one is better is entirely dependent on the teams around them, but they're both astonishingly good Pokemon.
 
With fucking Ditto all around the place DDMence is very risky to use. I always pack Weavile when I have DDMence to avoid being swept by a poke that I set up myself.
 

supermarth64

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is a Contributor Alumnus
WallMence is pretty good

Salamence@Leftovers
Wish
Protect
Flamethrower
Dragon Tail

On a stall team is a unexpected but good wishpasser with good phasing as well. Flamethrrower breaks down Natorei as well.
Use this. It's really good. Intimidate is very underrated on Salamence as I know from personal experience. It lets Mence come in on Roobushin's Bulk Up and survive the Stone Edge afterwards then phaze it out with Dragon Tail, forcing Roobushin to take more entry hazard damage. That makes it a lot easier for stall teams to take down Roobushin. Also, against Dragon Dancers, repeated Intimidate switchins means that eventually they'll get desperate and just Outrage meaning you can switch in Nattorei/Hippowdon or juts leave them with +0 Atk in the end.
 
Mulitscale is a better defensive ability than Intimidate and it gives Dragonite superior bulk as well as the ability to take special hits. also salamence cant use wish.
 
Mulitscale is a better defensive ability than Intimidate and it gives Dragonite superior bulk as well as the ability to take special hits. also salamence cant use wish.

Stealtth Rocks completely ruin Multiscale, forcing you to pack a Rapid Spinner just to use Dragonite effectively. Salamence does not have that problem, and Intimidate forces a fuckton of switches and can stop vast majority of dangerous sweepers in OU. And Salamence can learn Wish from a 3rd Gen event I belive.
 
gabezj said:
Mulitscale is a better defensive ability than Intimidate and it gives Dragonite superior bulk as well as the ability to take special hits. also salamence cant use wish.
1) Salamence can very well use Wish.

2)Intimidate has greater utility to stall than Multi-scale, mainly because it is of tremendous aid to stop set-up sweepers and isn't disabled by Stealth Rock.

EDIT: whoa...
 
Ok about wish, serebii didnt list it so i assumed it couldnt learn it. so then multiscale is what we need to address, with roost Multiscale can be activated as many times as it needs to be and SR isnt really as common as it used to be and it boosts both defenses as opposed to just one, and cant be gotten rid of when the opponent switches out.
 
Ok about wish, serebii didnt list it so i assumed it couldnt learn it. so then multiscale is what we need to address, with roost Multiscale can be activated as many times as it needs to be and SR isnt really as common as it used to be.

Dragonite is slow as shit, so it's quite hard to get in that Roost against any comptent player or team. And Stealth Rock is still as common as hell from what I remember playing Gen 5.
 
Ok about wish, serebii didnt list it so i assumed it couldnt learn it. so then multiscale is what we need to address, with roost Multiscale can be activated as many times as it needs to be and SR isnt really as common as it used to be.
Even taking all of that into account, to whatever extent it might be true, Multiscale is still far more limited in when it can be put to use than Intimidate.

Besides, Wish alone would be enough of a reason to use it over Dragonite. Not in all situations, but in enough.
 
However, Dragonite has roost for recovery so it doesnt really need wish for its self and wish passing would be better left to pokes with better HP. also, while it may be more limited and can require more forethought, i truly believe that is more effective as it helps it take physical hits better than intimidate and special hits much better, can be reused without switching out and is combined with dragonite's superior statistical bulk.
 
Salamence has base 95 HP. That's enough to pass decent sized Wishes to offensive Pokemon, especially with investment. He may not be the best at Wishpassing, but 197 HP Wishes are far better than no Wishes at all, which is what you'd get if you used Dragonite instead. Unless you could fit a different Wishpasser somewhere else on the team, which isn't a luxury you can expect to have. Not without sacrificing something else important, anyway.
 
mence also has roost which gives it a pretty good advantage over chomp if rocks aren't up and considering they aren't that common these days, as well as not being effected by spikes and toxic spikes.
Sr is still common as hell, and set-up Mence really needs his coverage
 
Salamence has base 95 HP. That's enough to pass decent sized Wishes to offensive Pokemon, especially with investment. He may not be the best at Wishpassing, but 197 HP Wishes are far better than no Wishes at all, which is what you'd get if you used Dragonite instead. Unless you could fit a different Wishpasser somewhere else on the team, which isn't a luxury you can expect to have. Not without sacrificing something else important, anyway.
Sure, you need to put wish on another team member if you want to use it but there are many roles that can be filled with another wish passer that would be superior to salamence at that role. and while sure, salamence does have that advantage over dragonite, dragonite is better in most scenarios.
 
gabezj said:
However, Dragonite has roost for recovery so it doesnt really need wish for its self and wish passing would be better left to pokes with better HP. also, while it may be more limited and can require more forethought, i truly believe that is more effective as it helps it take physical hits better than intimidate and special hits much better, can be reused without switching out and is combined with dragonite's superior statistical bulk.
Like I pointed out in my previous post, Intimidate really shows its worth against Set-up sweepers. Imagine a scenario where you're up against a Roobushin/Zuruzukin, and you have SR on your side of the field. You predict that its gonna Bulk Up. If you have a Mence, you can switch it in straight away, get an intimidate on it to neuter the BU and phaze it out, while not taking any life-threatening damage from Stone Edge/Crunch. If Roob predicts this switch and uses SE straightaway, its gonna do that at -1 Attack.

On the other Hand, going to Dragonite is useless since Multiscale isn't gonna do anything because of SR, and if Roob predicts your switch you're just gonna loose your best switch-in to Roob. Even if not, Dragonite has to eat a +1 Stone Edge to face before being able to force it out. Roosting is not a solution because you'll ultimately end up loosing more health when you try to phaze it out(and its not like Dragonite has pressure to stall it out, what with SE's high CH rate).
This is just an example,there are more applications of Intimidate like stopping DD sweepers and luring outrages from them, which also become a lot easier to handle with the attack drop. Ask anyone who has used(or uses) a RestTalk Gyarados in either of the Gens and you'll understand.
 
Sure, you need to put wish on another team member if you want to use it but there are many roles that can be filled with another wish passer that would be superior to salamence at that role. and while sure, salamence does have that advantage over dragonite, dragonite is better in most scenarios.
Salamence is one of many Wishpassers. If you need a Wishpasser, you use the one that fits onto your team best, and it's very probable for Salamence to be that Pokemon. Again, you rarely have the luxury of being able to just use another team slot to add whatever Wishpasser passes the best Wishes overall.

Dragonite is better in some scenarios, Salamence is better in others. It all depends on your team. That's the case with all sets viable in a given metagame. You asked what reason there was to use this particular set over one of Dragonite's similar sets, and you've been given a reason. What more do you want?
 

supermarth64

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is a Contributor Alumnus
Intimidate > Multiscale on defensive teams though. Multiscale by itself can't constantly check physical threats, especially if you don't have Stealth Rock spun away. Additionally, Salamence with -Special Attack nature can 2HKO 252/252+ Nattorei 100% of the time with Flamethrower and SR up (62% otherwise). Dragonite needs a neutral nature in order to do that, which means giving up its Speed or its Attack, making Dragon Tail weaker. Additionally, the faster Speed of Salamence means that in emergency cases, it can get off one last Wish to pass to your team. Dragonite can't outspeed much and ends up just dying before it can Roost to get up Multiscale again.

Besides, Multiscale Dnite isn't even released yet.
 
Like I pointed out in my previous post, Intimidate really shows its worth against Set-up sweepers. Imagine a scenario where you're up against a Roobushin/Zuruzukin, and you have SR on your side of the field. You predict that its gonna Bulk Up. If you have a Mence, you can switch it in straight away, get an intimidate on it to neuter the BU and phaze it out, while not taking any life-threatening damage from Stone Edge/Crunch. If Roob predicts this switch and uses SE straightaway, its gonna do that at -1 Attack.

On the other Hand, going to Dragonite is useless since Multiscale isn't gonna do anything because of SR, and if Roob predicts your switch you're just gonna loose your best switch-in to Roob. Even if not, Dragonite has to eat a +1 Stone Edge to face before being able to force it out. Roosting is not a solution because you'll ultimately end up loosing more health when you try to phaze it out(and its not like Dragonite has pressure to stall it out, what with SE's high CH rate).
This is just an example,there are more applications of Intimidate like stopping DD sweepers and luring outrages from them, which also become a lot easier to handle with the attack drop. Ask anyone who has used(or uses) a RestTalk Gyarados in either of the Gens and you'll understand.
Dnite can use DTail on setup sweepers too which effects pokemon that set up in all ways, rather than just physical boosts and will take less from an attack with multiscale than salamence would. also, im not saying multiscale is perfect but there are ways to get around rocks such as MM, new spinners like Excadrill and its decreased popularity. and sure, salamence can be effective against physical set up sweepers, dragonite can just take hits better in general and ditto is much more effective against most setup sweepers to the point where many pokemon dont set up like they used to.

Dragonite is better in some scenarios, Salamence is better in others. It all depends on your team. That's the case with all sets viable in a given metagame. You asked what reason there was to use this particular set over one of Dragonite's similar sets, and you've been given a reason. What more do you want?
sure, i agree that there are instances where salamence is better. im just saying that dragonite is better a larger portion of the time.
 

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